


swing & miss & catcher's mitt (strike two)

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: Pick Me Up (Again) [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2015-2016 NHL Season, 2016-2017 NHL Season, 2017-2018 NHL Season, Arizona Coyotes | Phoenix Coyotes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 07:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16551833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "He’s the third overall pick but they don’t even give him a chance."





	swing & miss & catcher's mitt (strike two)

[throw the ball to the stick]

He’s the third overall pick but they don’t even give him a chance.

It’s training camp and out for him, not even an apology or an explanation, just “we’re sending you back to Juniors” and a long quiet silence in which he tries to decide whether he should ask if there’s even a chance, later in the season…

He doesn’t ask. Maybe, if he had, they would have given him a shot. Maybe they would’ve left him down longer, to punish him for asking. All he knows for sure is that he spends the whole year in Erie, where everything that makes him feel good about himself can turn around and make him feel bad without any warning at all.

Being the captain is an incredible feeling, like the guys are his and the room is his and the team is his, until he remembers who should be the captain, and where Davo is instead of being the captain, where he wants to be, _should be_ , too. And when they end the regular season as the best team in the league he’s viciously happy to have succeeded over London, over _Marner_. And when they get swept out of the playoffs by London, by _Marner_ , he’s just as viciously angry.

And when London, when _Marner_ , wins the Mem Cup, he doesn’t text anyone for a week, not even Davo, who should know exactly what it’s like. Except Davo doesn’t, not really, because he has disappointment on disappointment, and Davo just has this one thing that didn’t go right, and everything else always has. Davo has an NHL career already, and a team full of first-round draft picks with all kinds of skill to play with him, and the generational talent to put them all on his back.

All he has is a team full of kids and a creeping feeling of self-doubt.

[strike one]

It takes seventeen games for them to play him seven. He knows that even just practicing with the team is huge for his development, but it doesn’t feel that way when he’s watching from the pressbox. It feels more like a waste of time, like he’s not even sure whether he wants this anymore, if this is all it’s going to be.

He doesn’t even get his nine before they send him down.

The Otters being the best team in the league again doesn’t really make him feel better. Neither does the World Juniors. He feels mechanical, like the heart’s been eroded out of him by time and sand and maybe the lack of some kind of kinship, the feeling that he’s not quite part of this team anymore, but that he’s not quite part of the Coyotes yet either.

What does turn out to make him feel better is winning the O, winning the chance to play for the Mem Cup, which Davo never got to do, and finally there’s one thing he’ll never get tired of being compared to Davo in. He sets a record, scoring 7 points in one round-robin game, and afterwards he’s breathless, thrilled at the win and the steady beating of his heart thumping strong and real in his chest, the way he feels newly alive.

He’s named the tournament MVP after they lose. It’s a breath of air trying desperately to keep the spark in him alight. He knows it’s not going to work even before he feels it go out. But he has a number he was given at the draft, the one that feels so long ago he almost can’t remember it, another Coyotes prospect who might have some sense of how he feels.

Lying there in bed the next night, he takes a deep breath and texts Fischer.

[strike two]

This time he only gets two games.

But the fury he feels, the spite, they propel him forwards and he throws himself into the game as hard as he can. The AHL doesn’t know what hit them. Or scored on them, for that matter. He’s so good it forces them to call him up.

His first game back is in Edmonton, and he’s so happy he forgets to dodge his asshole brother. Ryan comes and finds him in the hall and tries to suffocate him in a hug, but Ryan’s been the shortest of the three of them for years now, so it doesn’t work at all. Still, Ryan does have a certain amount of leverage with an arm around his neck, so he’s kind of stuck there until Fischy comes to get him.

“Stromer, move your ass,” Fischy says from behind him, right as a voice easily recognisable as Davo’s says, “Stromer, Coach wants you,” from behind Ryan. There’s a long silence between the four of them for a moment.

“We’re gonna kick your ass,” Ryan finally says, cheerily, and wanders towards the home locker room.

Dylan gets sent down again, eventually, but this time it’s with a promise that they’ll call him up again as soon as they can. Honestly he doesn’t even mind much now; he has Fischy to talk to, and Fischy is funny a lot of the time, and good at telling him what’s going on, making him feel like a part of the team even while he’s not there.

And, for the first time in a while, he has… not hope, maybe, but the knowledge that hope is coming to him, little by little.

[baby i’m howlin’ for you]

He makes the roster and he’s not going anywhere, he’s pretty sure, and the tiny sliver of hope that’s been warming his dreams is growing every day, with every drill, every smile from Fischy. He knows, now, that he loves what he does, even during the times it doesn’t love him back. And he knows, now, exactly who he is, even when what he does isn’t enough.

Dylan Strome goes up to Fischy and takes a deep breath.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you…”

**Author's Note:**

> \- All the titles (except "strike one") are lyrics from the Coyotes' main goal song, which is of course the Black Keys' "Howlin' For You". I'm not usually a lowercase title person but this is on trend, apparently, and is somewhat visually interesting besides.  
> \- The Mem Cup is the Memorial Cup. Four CHL teams (one champion each from OHL, WHL, QMJHL, plus the host team) compete for it every year.  
> \- Nine games is the maximum number a player on his ELC can play in a season without it counting as the full season for contract purposes. Most of the time they'll give a rookie the full nine if they're unsure, though it varies a lot depending on the rest of the roster.  
> \- The Oilers only sort of kicked the Coyotes' asses in that game; it was a 3-2 OT decision, and neither McDavid nor either Strome scored. Fischer did have the first goal of the game though.  
> \- The ending of this is deliberately ambiguous partly because it matches the feel of the song a bit better.


End file.
